


The Sanguine Ocean We Leave Behind Us

by bbcsherlockian



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dark Sherlock, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 19:38:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1790815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbcsherlockian/pseuds/bbcsherlockian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your comforts were more destructive than my open wounds pulled apart by this serrated blade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sanguine Ocean We Leave Behind Us

But it's The After now, and you were my Before. And I suppose everyone gets an equal share of both but I'm greedy, you see; I don't want us to be done quite yet. I jumped - fell - and you held my wrist which was still warm but bloody and-- Well. Look at us. We're living proof. We're all just one big magic trick in the end.

Of course, you don't know that. 

You must understand that I did love you. And I, above all people, understand the sheer weight of that. But I left you behind because I had to, even if leaving you behind was like tearing the blood out of my veins. We were incredible while we lasted but I was weakened by your every breath and - while I don't want that to be done, while I don't want our time of helpless laughter and adrenaline and lukewarm tea and muted candlelight behind your eyes to be over for me - it had to be done. Besides, I see now that I was becoming mundane, soft around the edges. Some have said you tamed me when no one else could, when I didn't want to be tamed. 

I still don't. I'm no animal, though. 

Now I understand what I was missing with you. Bare wood flooring, damp mould on single pane glass, a recklessness I haven't possessed for a long time, a disregard of sorts for my own life, limescale accumulating on unused kettles, the white noise of cheap alcohol and of stitching up my own bloodied flesh, overcoats to hide my crookedness and the feel of a smile playing, toying, with my mouth as if my teeth are made of knives. But I also, of course, understand what I'm missing without you. I don't think there is an achievable medium. 

My adoration for you was - is - unquestionable, please don't doubt that. It is, superior to all things, what I could not lie to either you or myself about. It was unhealthy though, for me to (what can only be described as) pine after you, for me to focus on your breathing when my head was full of complex equations pertaining to other people's trivial afflictions and puzzles: puzzles which should have been stimulating, which should have been enough - they once were, after all. 

Please comprehend that without it, without what I did, I would only have continued to stagnate and morph more completely into this false 'good man', and while the prospect may not have been boring when I was placed beside you - my god - it's terrifying now. I was always intended to burn and burn until roaring flames consumed me and my tongue turned to ash in my paper mouth but you-- you made me flicker and fade and I couldn't see the encroaching darkness until I stepped away. It was never your fault, though. Never your fault. 

It's not a comfortable experience but the sting of it, the weightlessness of my skin-- I feel cleansed and sullied in a way I can't quite explain. It would never work for you. You'd either end up killing me or just floating into the blood-red of the ocean we leave behind us. But that's not the only reason I haven't tried to contact you. 

If I revealed myself to you and you forced yourself to turn your back on me - or I forced you, I could, I could - you might as well hold your gun to my temple and press and press until it comes straight out the other side because to give myself that pointless opportunity, that taste of your return, and to pull it straight out from beyond my grasp I- I. As much as you blunted me, I couldn't live without that spark. 

A magic trick, a magic trick.

To be a successful magician, the real trick is to present one's audience with one illusion, while another occurs just beyond their field of comprehension. A trick to mask a greater trick. A blindfold to cover a blindfold. Paint over paint. 

So, now. Look at me now. I'm staring at the bare floorboards, the stark but old scars littering my skin and a kettle that still collects limescale although there's no one using it, no one would dare you use it but you. I blink, bite the inside of my cheek and think no more about the shape of your hands. There's a man in the room with me, and he is positioned so unobtrusively - his shoulders rounded and his head is bowed ever so slightly - it's laughable to think of him as something dangerous in this moment, as a spider constructing fine, fine webs in his mind. I look to him, the figure, just sitting before the open window and as he turns his head to face me, he grins - a grin I am now finally at liberty to return - but in his mouth, all I can see are knives.


End file.
